


Oíche Samhain

by Daegaer



Series: Burning Rome [3]
Category: Weiss Kreuz
Genre: 1st Century CE, AU, Roman era, Rome - Freeform, Schwarz - Freeform, lost gods, psychic powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sesithacus doesn't like the close of the tenth month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oíche Samhain

  
The tenth month of the Roman year drew to its close, and Rome grew damp and chill. Sesithacus was disgusted by the head cold that dogged him, making his voice nasal and his throat sore. The slaves sneered at him if he blew his nose on the floor or spat, though they did likewise when they were ill. _Damn Romans_ , he thought, and, as he had most recently been laughed at by the secretary, a Halicarnassian who boasted he was worth the price of all the other house slaves together, _and damn Greeks too. If the city really is to burn I'll happily push him back into the flames_.

"Why don't you have a cold too?" he whined at Sanagi, irritated by the boy's stillness and the way he stared in silence at the lamp's tiny flame. He kept his gaze steady as the boy's deep blue eyes slowly focused on him as if seeing him from a great height.

"I do not choose to," Sanagi said, as if it were a sensible thing to say. As if _anything_ he said were sensible. After another moment something very like amusement flickered briefly across his thin face. "You could ask Caratacus to heal you."

"He pretends to be a prophet, not a doctor," Sesithacus grumbled.

"He does not pretend. You are the one hidden in pretence, fox."

"I'm going to the kitchens to make them give me honey," Sesithacus said. He didn't know why he tried to get Sanagi to talk. The boy never said anything worth listening to, he thought. Or that didn't leave him feeling odd, as if he heard distant pebbles dropping into the water of other men's minds. He sighed and wished Caratacus were there; he didn't want to give Sanagi the satisfaction of seeing him follow a suggestion, but Caratacus claimed British priests were trained in the healing arts and perhaps he _did_ have a spell that would let Sesithacus breathe easy. As he and Februus had vanished earlier in the day, however, Sesithacus felt sure that wheedling honey from the kitchens was the most he could hope for.

He was lucky, he thought, that the mistress of the house's maid Niobe was in the kitchens. The kitchen slaves would listen to her if she said he should have honey, and he would only have to bend her mind to his will rather than all of theirs. "Hello, Niobe," he said with his most open smile, doing his best to hide the annoyance he felt when he saw within her mind that she considered him a _lanky German barbarian_. It felt almost easy to push into her mind, thinking hard that she should see him rather as a _poor sick boy in need of care_. It felt _too_ easy, he thought, unnerved by how much simpler it seemed, every time he tried. He coughed, quite genuinely, hiding his mouth behind one hand as the Halicarnassian secretary insisted _civilized_ men did.

"You poor thing," Niobe said, her expression softening. "Does your throat hurt?" As he nodded pathetically, pushing the idea of _honey_ at her, she looked around and beckoned one of the scullery maids over. "Get him a couple of spoons of honey for his cough – the cheaper kind."

They had more than one kind, Sesithacus thought. He'd bear that in mind for his next visit to the kitchens. His throat eased for the moment, he went back to the room he shared with the others and lay on his bed, his blankets pulled up to his ears. The room was black when he awoke, certain of danger. He reached steathily for his knife, listening to the slight sounds that said he and Sanagi were not alone, and reaching out too to listen to the minds of the intruders. He flinched back from the sense of amusement over something cold and unpleasant, like deceptive ice over black water. At the same time a voice spoke right in his ear, laughing.

"I could have slit your throat a dozen times over."

"Get away from me, you madman!" Sesithacus said, thanking the gods that it came out as anger rather than the terrified squeak he felt it would. His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness as Februus laughed at him and withdrew. A moment later Caratacus came in, sheltering a smouldering taper. He unerringly crossed the room and lit the lamp. A man so near blindness wouldn't have been put off by the darkness, Sesithacus thought nastily and sat up. "Where have you two been?"

"Celebrating," Februus said, grinning like a goblin at him. "Do you not celebrate the season, Sesithacus?"

"May you be blessed in the new year," Caratacus said, and came to his side, dropping a couple of small apples and a handful of nuts on his blankets.

Sesithacus caught the apples before they could roll away, and kept his eyes away from Februus' hands. They were red up to the wrist. Caratacus had taken the time to wash, but it seemed that while his visions could guide him through a dark house he had relied on his failing sight when he scrubbed his hands. The blood clung round his nails where he had not been careful enough, and a smear of it still darkened the back of his left hand. He watched as Caratacus dropped apples on Sanagi's bed and laughed as they stopped in midair, revolving slowly as Sanagi peered at them in suspicion. Sesithacus didn't feel like laughing.

"Tell me that's lamb's blood," he said, keeping his voice mild, as if they were all enjoying a conversation about something of no importance.

Caratacus smiled over his shoulder at him and said nothing, dropping ivy leaves upon his own bed.

"Sesithacus," Februus said in heavy, ironic innocence, "it is lamb's blood."

"A lost little lamb," Sanagi said, and held out a hand for the apples to drop into, pulling them under the blankets to sniff at them in pleasure.

Sesithacus lay down in silence and pulled the blankets up again, holding on to the apples and nuts like talismans against the night. _Damn Romans,_ he thought, _and damn Greeks. And damn Celts too._

 

 


End file.
